[Cause]

'President Ramaphosa has promised residents one million houses over the next five years and tablets for schools over the same period.'

I just discovered this gem. My president promising the poor that if they vote for the ANC he will build them 1 million free houses in 5 years. That would require the magic construction genie to build 548 houses a day, every day for 5 years. Amazing!

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 12 April 2019 - 07:33 PM, said:

Abyss, on 12 April 2019 - 06:59 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 12 April 2019 - 05:55 PM, said:

I give blood but I'm not very good at doing it regularly. Need to get on with it tbh.

No problem. What time do you usually go to sleep?

I have a 5 month old baby so your question is meaningless to me.

Perfect.
You won’t even notice.

[Una]

My mother-in-law passed away yesterday morning. She lived in Indonesia. We live in Canada.

She was diagnosed with cancer a couple months ago. The doctors had recommended surgery, followed by chemo. I am the only doctor in the family (and a cancer survivor - 3 years cancer-free and counting!), so of course they kept sending me the reports asking me to give a second opinion. The reports were in Indonesian. It was a challenge, to say the least. It looked bad, but not hopeless to me, so tried to stay positive for her and told her we would all be there for her to get her through the treatment, and that she would feel a whole lot better once they at least got the tumour out of her body. While they were arranging what sounded to me like surgery pre-planning tests, she got scared and disappeared for about 2 weeks to some kind of faith healing resort that some guy from her Church ran. As in, sent us texts telling us she was going, didn't tell us where, and then went incommunicado. My poor husband was frantic. On top of that, he only just got his Canadian citizenship, some of the papers were messed up and had to be re-ordered, and until then, he couldn't get a passport to go over and look for her. Or I mean, he could leave on his Indonesian passport, but he wouldn't be able to come back without the Canadian one. That has since gotten sorted out.

We were all relieved when she came back and said she felt stronger and ready to resume medical treatment, but she had missed a bunch of appointments, so it took some time to get everything rebooked again. She had the surgery last week, and the info I got was garbled, but I think when they got in there, the cancer had possibly spread to some another organ, so they took some samples and closed her without removing the tumour(s) and told us they probably needed to do chemo first to shrink the cancer and make surgery easier. At this point, I am super worried. But she seemed stable, so the plan was still to wait until around her surgery and then go over to help out as she recovered, look after her during her chemo, and such.

Then about 3 days ago she had some shortness of breath and had to be given some oxygen and they weren't really sure why. I asked my husband if maybe he wanted to go back to see her now that things were looking a little worse, but he told me that his sisters back home said she was recovering, so I let it go.

Then yesterday morning, as we were all waking up and trying to get ready for work/school, he got a call from his sister saying that they found the reason for the shortness of breath, it looked bad, and they were asking if we were willing to let them do this relatively risky maneuver to save her. My husband came and asked me what they should do. I was trying to get my 5 year old dressed for school and I think he could sense something was wrong, because he started crying and tantruming about something unrelated, which he rarely does anymore. And all I could say was, "I think you need to get over there, like, now." so he said he would book a ticket later that day. I was trying to digest the info they gave me so I could give the family a coherent recommendation. I finally managed to calm down both my boys and get them down for breakfast. I was brushing my teeth when my husband came back up and said, "Never mind. It's too late. They couldn't save her...."

I feel kind of awful for not pushing my husband more to go back when she had that shortness of breath, not that I could have predicted what was going to happen. My husband came over here for grad school almost 10 years ago. He hardly ever went back home because it was too expensive on a grad student stipend. He only went back once a few years ago. I only saw her once and that was for our wedding here. I am glad she was able to stay with us a bit longer after the wedding. You could tell how much she missed her only son. My own mother is very emotionally distant and highly critical, so it warmed my heart to see the way my MIL was with her son. She cried when she had to go back home. I am glad that she got to see him happily married before she died, but I am heartbroken that she didn't get to see him one last time before she passed. I drove him to the airport this morning for the 2 am flight. I don't know how else to support him, so I am just going to do my best to keep the household going while he's away and take care of more of the day-to-day stuff so he can take the time to grieve.

[Andorion]

Una, on 13 April 2019 - 05:13 AM, said:

My mother-in-law passed away yesterday morning. She lived in Indonesia. We live in Canada.

She was diagnosed with cancer a couple months ago. The doctors had recommended surgery, followed by chemo. I am the only doctor in the family (and a cancer survivor - 3 years cancer-free and counting!), so of course they kept sending me the reports asking me to give a second opinion. The reports were in Indonesian. It was a challenge, to say the least. It looked bad, but not hopeless to me, so tried to stay positive for her and told her we would all be there for her to get her through the treatment, and that she would feel a whole lot better once they at least got the tumour out of her body. While they were arranging what sounded to me like surgery pre-planning tests, she got scared and disappeared for about 2 weeks to some kind of faith healing resort that some guy from her Church ran. As in, sent us texts telling us she was going, didn't tell us where, and then went incommunicado. My poor husband was frantic. On top of that, he only just got his Canadian citizenship, some of the papers were messed up and had to be re-ordered, and until then, he couldn't get a passport to go over and look for her. Or I mean, he could leave on his Indonesian passport, but he wouldn't be able to come back without the Canadian one. That has since gotten sorted out.

We were all relieved when she came back and said she felt stronger and ready to resume medical treatment, but she had missed a bunch of appointments, so it took some time to get everything rebooked again. She had the surgery last week, and the info I got was garbled, but I think when they got in there, the cancer had possibly spread to some another organ, so they took some samples and closed her without removing the tumour(s) and told us they probably needed to do chemo first to shrink the cancer and make surgery easier. At this point, I am super worried. But she seemed stable, so the plan was still to wait until around her surgery and then go over to help out as she recovered, look after her during her chemo, and such.

Then about 3 days ago she had some shortness of breath and had to be given some oxygen and they weren't really sure why. I asked my husband if maybe he wanted to go back to see her now that things were looking a little worse, but he told me that his sisters back home said she was recovering, so I let it go.

Then yesterday morning, as we were all waking up and trying to get ready for work/school, he got a call from his sister saying that they found the reason for the shortness of breath, it looked bad, and they were asking if we were willing to let them do this relatively risky maneuver to save her. My husband came and asked me what they should do. I was trying to get my 5 year old dressed for school and I think he could sense something was wrong, because he started crying and tantruming about something unrelated, which he rarely does anymore. And all I could say was, "I think you need to get over there, like, now." so he said he would book a ticket later that day. I was trying to digest the info they gave me so I could give the family a coherent recommendation. I finally managed to calm down both my boys and get them down for breakfast. I was brushing my teeth when my husband came back up and said, "Never mind. It's too late. They couldn't save her...."

I feel kind of awful for not pushing my husband more to go back when she had that shortness of breath, not that I could have predicted what was going to happen. My husband came over here for grad school almost 10 years ago. He hardly ever went back home because it was too expensive on a grad student stipend. He only went back once a few years ago. I only saw her once and that was for our wedding here. I am glad she was able to stay with us a bit longer after the wedding. You could tell how much she missed her only son. My own mother is very emotionally distant and highly critical, so it warmed my heart to see the way my MIL was with her son. She cried when she had to go back home. I am glad that she got to see him happily married before she died, but I am heartbroken that she didn't get to see him one last time before she passed. I drove him to the airport this morning for the 2 am flight. I don't know how else to support him, so I am just going to do my best to keep the household going while he's away and take care of more of the day-to-day stuff so he can take the time to grieve.

I am so sorry.

Don't blame yourself for not making your husband go earlier. Sometimes these things are very hard to predict. When my grandmother passed away very suddenly, the only thing that was wrong with her was a bad knee and acidity.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yeah it's definitely not on you, Una. Very sorry to hear that it sounds like it's been an extremely stressful time altogether. I hope you can be a source of comfort without draining yourself too much over the upcoming weeks.

[Una]

Thank you all. It's been a long 2 days with a lot of last minute arrangements. I think my husband is temporarily distracting himself by throwing himself into the details. The flights, making sure his workplace can still function in his absence, what to pack. He was doing detailed comparisons of flight offerings to find the cheapest flight, because that's what he would do under any other circumstances. I had to be the one to tell him that we are financially comfortable enough that he can just pick the one that works the best and not worry if it costs a little bit more money. He was asking me before he left what I wanted him to bring back from Asia. A little silly because it's not like he is going on vacation and needs to bring me a gift. I think he is just using things like that to fill up his brain because if his brain goes quiet, the realization is going to hit him. I know that is how he copes with stress. I am just kind of worried of what is going to happen when it really hits him and he can't put off thinking about it anymore. But he's going to be with his family this week and they can comfort each other. I am just going to take it a day at a time.

[Malankazooie]

Holy fuck! Notre Dame in Paris is on fire!

[Aptorian]

The Notre Dame Cathedral is on fire.

It breaks my heart when historical buildings get destroyed. Hope they get it under control and can rebuild.

Edit: Fast Kazooie is fast.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 15 April 2019 - 06:06 PM

[Malankazooie]

The pictures don't look good. Utterly heart breaking.

[EDIT] Fuck! Just saw footage of the spire collapsing.

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 15 April 2019 - 06:18 PM

[Abyss]

Wow... the Cathedral was a year short of 900 years old. That is a tragedy.

[QuickTidal]

Total tragedy. VERY glad my wife made sure we saw it the day we were in Paris, so at least I have that memory. Beautiful church and building.

[Tiste Simeon]

Watching that spire fall hurt.

[worry]

Reporting that the main structure is 'saved and preserved.' https://twitter.com/...894472002490368

[Nicodimas]

/ sad face

All that hand carved wood.. masonry and the glass

The gothic period is arguably the most beautiful period too.

[Puck]

Messing with my groove is that I have been watching people rub one off about Notre Dame all evening, clogging up all the news feeds with their narcissictic selfies and "mooh, blessed be me for I visited the original building and here's a picture to prove it"! No, asshole, you didn't, that thing has been so extensively restored and redecorated over time it's not the same as it was 900 freaking years ago. Look, if your first thought is to be glad about having visited, good for you, so did I, but personally, my first though was about how many people may still be inside, and much of the interior could be removed before the fire reached it and how can the fire be brought under control, not about posting selfies and clogging up the news feeds. Nor was it going "woe is me, what about all that heritage I won't get to see". If you would stop jerking off for five seconds, you'd have the time to read the news and know that they're on it. I mean, I have seen so many people commenting on how "all these works of art have been lost forever" and "restoring Notre-Dame is IMPOSSIBLE". Read the news, you dimwit. Read the Wikipedia article if the news are too complicated, for fuck's sake.

I'm not even going to talk about all the nonsense conspirathy theories. "This building has stood for a thousand years, it couldn't POSSIBLY have caught fire by accident after all this time!" Yes, you fucking idiot, the older timber gets the more fire resistent it becomes, sound logic. "The authorities aren't doing anything anything??!!!11" Yes, what do you expect them to do? Jump in with their asses bared and shit the fire out?

Basically, I am annoyed by all the narcissism and parroting of learned sentiments I have seen this evening, all lamenting the loss of something that these people obviously know exactly one thing about: it's a church in Paris. Actually, two things: it also featured in a Disney movie. It will be rebuilt, as so many other historical buildings have been rebuilt. The windows can be recreated. Most of the relics made it out in time. These kinds of building are rebuilt all the time unser people's noses. Once you reach one end of it and have restored it, you can start all over at the other end again.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I am as shocked as everyone else, but this is overshadowed by the narcissism and ignorance I have been witnessing all evening.

I', sorry for the rant, it's just been rubbing me the wrong way.

Here's a good one to end said rant, actually:

[Nicodimas]

@ puck

You can rebuild a thing, but hand made element those that were lost aren’t going to be the same.

I think anything hand made in particular would be mostly hard to replace..

https://repository.l...le/10822/554233

https://www.google.c...acts/index.html

[Macros]

I think Puck is saying most of the interior isn't 900 years old anyway.
Over the years passive restoration would have left it like Triggers broom

[Aptorian]

Dame of Theseus?

[Mezla PigDog]

Won't someone think of the hunchback.

[Cause]

I have no emotional attachment to this building and have struggled to understand why some people I know are reacting with such great horror to this. Its a tragedy yes, they will restore it best as they can. Each to their own I guess

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So I am going to London as you all know. Staying with a friend who has sort of immigrated there. She and her boyfriend and his brother asked me if I wanted to join them on a weekend away in cornwal for easter and I said sounds good. I looked at the map and saw cornwall is sort of close to Portsmouth and asked if anyone is keen to go there for a day on the way back. Naval museum, HMS victory etc. Everyone said they were keen. I thought great, I get to see it (something I really want) and everything was settled. This was like a month ago.

Then a bizarre turn of events. My friend's brother gets badly sick in Germany so she leaves London to check on him. Her boyfriend calls me and says he is looking at the logistics and Portsmouth wont work and they canning it. It sucks but I said Id try go on my own. My friend messages me though to apologize, saying she doesn't understand what happened, hopes I'm not too disappointed. She was busy to follow the story while dealing with her brpther, the hospital, the SA embassy (which I get). She even says she feels like a coup was staged and she was keen to go too. Anyway I'm left kind of wondering if the boyfriend did it to be a dick, was he never keen, were the logistics really too hard. We have car, there are trains etc. Just seems odd.

I kind of get the impression he doesnt really like me. Not that we are enemies but just that their is no warmth either. He messaged me a while back to say that both he and my friend have become vegans becusae of the price of meat in London and a Netflix documentary and would I be able to survive (I LOVE MEAT). He said don't tell my friend he told me because she will feel awkward. So I have dismissed this as a weird prank.